Chapter 26
Beta'd by Black Sparrow
And then a week after the baby room was finished the female Hatake found out the gender of her baby.
Himawatari-sensei informed an excited Shiori that she was having a little girl and that the baby was healthy and right on track concerning her growth. The mother-to-be walked dazed out of the practice while she repeated the news over and over in her head. A girl, a sweet little baby girl that would have traits of both her and Kakashi. Dizzy with happiness Shiori hurried home.
When she arrived at the compound she was greeted by a chuckling Kakashi who was shaking his head at his pack. It seemed as if Urushi and Bisuke had ganged up on Bull…well at least tried to gang up on Bull, the giant dog sat in his usual sunspot and was ignoring the two smaller dogs that were trying to animate him to movement.
Shiori hummed contently and sat down on their newest set of garden furniture curtsey of Tenzo. The blue eyed civilian stretched her legs a bit before straightening her back to prevent the worsening of her back pains and then turned to her husband that just brought a pitcher of water and two glasses from the house. Kakashi filled a glass for her before turning around to watch his pack that was scattered all over the backyard, his lips were twitching while he witnessed how the younger members of his pack tried to entice the older ones in a game of catch.
Slightly distracted and with his back to Shiori the silver haired Jounin asked, "I take it everything was fine?"
"Yes, the baby is right on track and there aren't any problems," Shiori answered warmly before she took another sip of her drink and then said innocently, "By the way, painting the nursery yellow was a good idea…after all we are having a daughter."
The normally so unflappable man at first didn't seem to register what Shiori said and only hhmed in agreement before his whole body stiffened and he turned his head around so fast that Shiori could hear something in his spine cracking. In front of Shiori the silver haired shinobi stumbled slightly and had to grip on the back of the wooden bench before he sagged sunk onto the seating and stared at her with a slightly open mouth. His gobsmacked expression undid any self-control Shiori had left and she laughed happily while she patted Kakashi's arm reassuringly. 'Well at least he didn't faint,' was the only thing that ran through the reincarnation's head while she continued to watch her husband's reaction.
He was having a daughter.
This thought repeated itself again and again in Kakashi's head while his mind was trying to make sense of what he had just heard. This was the confirmation that the little being inside Shiori really existed. Of course Kakashi had intellectually known that they were having a baby on the way. He had noticed the change of hormones, the tiny sounds from the heartbeat as well as Shiori's slowly expanding figure but until that moment it was always 'the baby', something still too abstract to realize but now, now it was different. Kakashi felt how his lips slowly turned up into a gentle smile while his eyes searched for his wife's bulging belly that was slightly obscured by the table between them. Kakashi stood up and rounded said table while his eyes never left Shiori's middle. That was his little baby girl inside there, he thought giddily while he tried to imagine how she would look like one day, would she have Shiori's black hair or his silver? What color would her eyes be? Would she have her mother's enticing figure? Suddenly Kakashi's elated mood ended abruptly.
He was having a daughter, a sweet little girl that one day would grow up and have boys chasing after her…oh crap what was he going to do?
"You are never, ever going to be allowed to date," Kakashi spoke seriously to Shiori's stomach while he cautiously stroked over the warm and hard ball.
Shiori snorted. "Honey calm down, she isn't even born yet."
"That doesn't matter, I read that babies are pretty aware even during the pregnancy, better to set some ground rules early," Kakashi said calmly while he looked up at his wife determinedly.
Shiori only laughed as an answer and kissed him on the forehead, Kakashi was hilarious in his denial of their unborn daughter's dating record. For the rest of the day she had the pleasure to see the normally so calm and collected Jounin look dazed and far away.
The dinner invitation for Kakashi's colleagues had turned into a weekly thing in the last month, whoever was in the village at that time dropped by to join the Hatake couple for dinner. On that particular evening all of them were in attendance and so the soon-to-be parents used the opportunity and informed their friends about the gender of their child. Kakashi, who had pulled himself together in the last few hours enjoyed the stunned face just as much as Shiori did and while Gai and Tenzo were frozen stiff for quite some time, Raido and Genma recovered pretty fast.
"So, any ideas concerning the little princesses' name?" Genma asked curiously after congratulating the Hatake pair.
Both soon-to-be-parents shook their heads while they looked at each other in askance, neither of them had thought about the name yet.
"Well, Genma is a good name for a girl," the senbon wielder supplied helpfully.
"No," both Hatakes deadpanned at the same time.
"I hate to tell you this my friend but Genma is definitely a boy's name unless you want to tell us something," Kakashi added while he raised an eyebrow at his comrade.
Said man just grinned and shrugged his shoulders, it was worth a try.
The rest of the four months left of her pregnancy, Shiori spent primarily in her home with a few visits to the doctor, the tea house and the market. Shiori was most of the time visited by either her husband's colleagues or her employees who all were in the know now.
The last time Shiori had been at the tea house was at twenty four weeks, her work kimono hid her baby bump pretty well, especially now that she wore it slightly less tight but she had seen quite a few of the more paranoid or specialized shinobis' eyebrows wander up while they stared at her middle. Shiori was pretty sure that while nobody had spoken it out loud, at least a large part of the Tokubetsu Jounin and up were aware of her pregnancy, not to mention the whole Hyuuga clan. During Shiori's seventh month Sora informed his employer that quite a few restaurants and merchants had approached them about selling her recipes to them. Some of them had even tried to bribe it out of her employees. Thankfully none of Shiori's staff had felt even the slightest bit seduced by the various offers. The reason for that was partly Shiori's strict selection criteria concerning her employees as well as the sense of importance concerning discretion that her training had instilled into them, they all took too much pride in their jobs at Mariko's to fall for these attempts. It also didn't hurt that thanks to Shiori's generous wages they were all financially safe and their families well taken care of.
After the first shock about these bribing efforts left Shiori, a smirking Sora continued to tell her how one of the foreign merchants who had tried to pressure one of the younger kitchen workers into relieving the secrets had been taken to T&I when one of the members of the division had caught him harassing the girl in a side street, since than not a single employee had been approached by anyone.
Shiori had been stunned for a moment before laughing tears at the story, when she had calmed down again she brought up the idea of perhaps setting up contracts with other restaurants to sell her desserts through them. Sora had nodded thoughtfully to this but had cautioned her to push the idea back at least for another half a year so that she would be recovered enough to do the negotiations herself. The pregnant civilian had frowned a bit but in the end just nodded to this, Sora was right.
A few days after Sora's visit the black haired woman was visited by another group, this time some of her youngest employees. Under them was Suzuki, the kitchen worker that had been harassed. When Shiori concernedly asked if she really was okay after what had happened, the bright sixteen year old had just grinned and admitted that she was now going out with said T&I member that had rescued her and was pretty happy. She also confessed to Shiori about the fact that she had had a relationship with a shinobi before her current one but had never understood why her ex-boyfriend had done certain things differently than a civilian man. Suzuki admitted that she had felt awful after realizing what a colossal bitch she had been to him and had visited her ex-boyfriend to apologize for her behavior back then.
Shiori was glad that Suzuki seemed to have found someone that suited her and the two were happy. The black haired soon-to-be mother listened contently while her bubbly employee told her about how Suzuki's new boyfriend had interested her into psychology and how she had started to implement the things she had read about into her behavior at the tea house and the reactions she had drawn with it.
Concerning her baby girl's development Himawatari-sensei was very happy with how precisely Shiori was following her instructions about getting plenty of rest and keeping off her feet. The civilian's overall health was so good that the gynecologist gave Shiori plenty of praise throughout the last months of her pregnancy, because nothing made Etsuko happier than a patient who LISTENED to what she had to say.
When asked where she wanted to have her child, the gynecologist had seen how Shiori had reacted unsure, she clearly wanted to have medical supervision at all costs but she probably also wanted her husband or lover to be with her when she had the child. Understanding her patient's turmoil, Himawatari-sensei offered Shiori to act as her midwife in her own home and to be sworn to silence about the father of the child. As a still fully certified medic-nin, the gynecologist could also fill out the birth certificate and file it in Shiori's folder without anyone else seeing it. The black haired woman had looked immensely relieved and had promised to talk this over with her husband before giving a final decision. With this slip up the civilian had confirmed Etsuko's suspicion and the medic-nin couldn't help but curiously wonder about who the elusive husband of Shiori-san was.
When confronted with the choice the Hatake couple decided to have a home birth with Himawatari-sensei as the attending medic.
And so the retired medic-nin was introduced to Kakashi on the following day when she was invited to Shiori's home to talk over the steps of a house birth and the needed supplies for it. Finding out that Hatake Kakashi was Shiori-san's partner was quite the surprise to Etsuko, if not even a shock.
The retired kunoichi tried to keep her bewilderment under wraps although the amused glance that Hatake-Jounin had sent her halfway through the conversation made it more than clear that it wasn't working, at least not concerning him. Who would have thought that behind the uncaring bachelor facade was a downright possessive and overprotective husband and soon-to-be father? Now that she was thinking about it, this made perfect sense, because who would think that the public porn reading and confirmed bachelor Hatake Kakashi had a family hidden away? No one.
Shaking her head and grinning the whole way back to her home she contemplated the mysteries of life. In the ninja world you really had to look underneath the underneath and even then you sometimes found out things that you would have never guessed.
On another note, Etsuko knew that she would have to search as covertly as possible through the hospital records for notes on the Hatake family. She had noticed the way Hatake-Jounin circled his wife and seemed to test the air for any disturbances and threats not unlike an Inuzuka. The retired medic-nin wanted to be prepared for all eventualities and as far as she had seen now a house birth was probably the safest thing concerning this baby. Wryly the woman shook her head while she continued her thought. This was not even for the baby's sake but more for the sake of the idiot that moved too close to Hatake-Jounin's vulnerable family without his expressive permission. Because unfortunately common sense and self-preservation didn't seem to be a requirement for the hospital staff in Konoha and so there was the occasional incident when someone would somehow provoke a defensive reaction from an already stressed ninja with a canine contract or bloodline.
With a deep sigh Etsuko walked through her door, she had a lot of preparations and research to do before this baby could come.